


Long Division

by AuthorGod



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angry John, Character Study, Complicated Relationships, Dysfunctional Family, Emotional Constipation, Explicit Consent, Happy Ending, Introspection, Jolto, M/M, Mary doesn't die, Mental Health Issues, Mutual Pining, POV John Watson, brief description of domestic violence, but only for a minute :(, but she doesn't hang around either, overuse of adverbs, please free me from hell, redeemable angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-05
Updated: 2016-02-05
Packaged: 2018-05-18 06:56:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5902891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuthorGod/pseuds/AuthorGod
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Locked into his bedroom that night, John looks at his bloody knuckles.  Cut up from repeated impact.</p>
<p>He watches himself in the full length mirror, his body seems too open.  Too unsafe.  He takes the anger, folds it up, buries it deep where no one can touch it. </p>
<p>This will keep me safe, he thinks, make it a part of you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Long Division

**Author's Note:**

> I used to write under a different pseud, and took a break from writing due to illness and the need to evaluate my content and the pain that had crept into my work. Up until this, I haven't written a thing in over a year. So I'm starting fresh, which is always a great idea. This story is plonked out and it's probably a mess and very possibly boring and that's okay! It was a way for me to exercise my brain and my words, so no, it's not great. But it has been therapeutic and I wanted to share it despite the clumsiness. 
> 
> Also, before you begin, I'll advise again a warning for brief mention/description of domestic violence. It's not gratuitous, and definitely not glorified, but it's a bit of my own introspective experience on how one encounters such a thing as an adolescent. Please take care of yourself if this is one of your hardline triggers!
> 
> All disclaimers aside, good luck and godspeed.

\---

Dad takes John hunting in the moors.  It’s time for him to learn “ How To Be A Man,” and somehow this means shooting hares and red grouse.  

He turns up his coat collar and crouches silently in the long grass.  A brown hare peaks up from its burrow, creeps out onto brush.  It’s nose twitches, silky ears perking as the scent of humans is blown toward him.  John takes aim, pulls the trigger.  The shot lands an exact eight centimeters away from the creature, blows the purple bloom off of a thistle.  The hare immediately scampers back into the safety of his burrow.  Under a rock.  Under a stone.  Down, deep in the ground.

Dad curses at John, snatches the air rifle away and calls him a tosspot.  

John hadn’t missed.  

\---

Dad shouts at Mum, “You’re so  _ stupid, _ ” and she’s lazy, impossible, slow.

John’s cheeks burn, he stares into the cereal bowl.  Shredded wheat grows sodden with milk, inedible.  He can’t move, can’t look up.  Harry is frozen in the same state, her fingers wrapped around the silver end of her spoon, the beds of her nails blanching.  They can’t move, because if they move, they might exist.  They might be noticed, and then they too will have failed at something.

He yells and Mum apologises softly, her fingers twisting about the tattered flannel she clutches to her stomach, wringing it like a neck.  She won’t leave him, John and Harry have both begged her to do it.  John tries not to be angry with her when she defends him, tells himself that their mother is traumatised and unable to do what is best for herself and her children. But at what point is John allowed to be selfish, when is he allowed to actually  _ be _ a child?  

Dad finally leaves, he opens the door, his absence brings the oxygen back to the room and John gulps it down.  He’s able to look back for one moment toward Mum, the nervous tremble of her lips.

Three seconds, and the mask slips back into place.  She smiles at him, “Finish your breakfast dear,” as if the four walls aren’t pushing in to crush them all.

\----

Harry comes out to their parents on Boxing Day.  She stands straight with her back braced against the wall, and says, “I’m gay,” so simply.  She isn’t telling them because she thinks they’ll actually care in the grand scheme of things, and she doesn’t need their approval.  She’s giving them the truth, so that she can leave with clarity and good reason.  

And, perhaps, to give them one final chance to be decent parents.

Mum cries a little.  “What will the church say?”  John rolls his eyes, can’t understand how the opinion of a  _ church _ is more important than Harry’s life.

Then Dad is out of his chair and shouting, advancing on Harry like John has seen him do to Mum too many times.  Something precarious inside of John raises its head, snaps, and he jumps between Dad and his sister.

He barely even feels the blow.  He only knows his lip is bleeding because he can taste it in his mouth.  John catches his fingers around Dad’s throat, digs in with his nails while Dad’s stubby fingers rip at his shoulders.  He slams him onto the shag carpet, John is screaming, somehow, cursing the man.

It takes both Harry and Mum to drag him away, his arms still reaching out like claws to rip the man to bits so that no one will be able to find the pieces.  John wishes, desperately, to erase this man from the earth.

“I’ll kill you if you touch them again,” John promises, he spits at him.  Saliva tinted with blood.  “I swear I will.”

\----

Locked into his bedroom that night, John looks at his bloody knuckles.  Cut up from repeated impact.

He watches himself in the full length mirror, his body seems too open.  Too unsafe.  He takes the anger, folds it up, buries it deep where no one can touch it.  

This will keep me safe, he thinks, make it a part of you.

\---

Dad is afraid of John, now. 

He gets lethargic.  Goes silent.  He sits on the reclining chair and eats crisps, drinks too much lager, and passes out every night.

It’s better, this way.  It still hurts, but then again John suspects in a way, it always will.  So yes, it’s better this way.

\---

John tries to hold the blood in at the femoral artery, but the boy is bleeding out in his hands, and there’s not a thing to be done.

It’s gotten easier, watching this happen.  Easier in the way that an adult learns how to deal with pain by hiding it underneath something else.  Telling it  _ stay there,  _ promising to feel it later, knowing you’re lying.   He’s a doctor and it’s against the value of life he promised to uphold, but he’s also a soldier and death has been at his back since stepping a boot out onto the hot desert. 

Not but nineteen years old, and now the boys eyes are blindly open, his blood baking into the sand.

People are screaming orders around him.  John doesn’t have time to mourn the young soldier, because soon he’s being called to work another GSR.  The body stays there, crumpled, empty.

\---

“Rough day, Watson,” Major Sholto watches John scrub the dried blood from under his nails.

John huffs, “Yes sir, that’s one way to put it.”  He grimaces at his face in the grungy mirror.  His hair stuck up on ends, dark circles under his eyes from too many days and too many casualties and not enough sleep.

“You can’t save everyone,” the Major reminds him.  “It’s just not possible.”

“Doubt their families will see it that way,” John bites back, Sholto’s words are like working a raw nerve.  Flaying it wide and prodding the agonised tendrils.

Sholto comes up behind him, leans down to gently whisper in John’s ear. “I’ll be in tonight, if you need anything.”

\----

James Sholto is taller, broader, but John manages to back him into a corner and rub up against him all the same.  He has to laugh breathlessly and clamp his fingers over Sholto’s mouth when the man lets loose a groan.

“Paperwork doesn’t sound like that,” John whispers, sighs happily at the feel of blunt nails pushing under his shirt and scraping down his spine.

“Might do.  If one really enjoys their line of work.”

“Enough chatting,” John says, their lips barely apart.  Not kissing, because they don’t do that.  It isn’t  because James is a man, John came to terms with that a long time ago.  At fifteen. In the choir room with Omar, the other clarinetist, with their hands down each other’s trousers and John’s teeth biting blissfully into ebony skin at Omar’s shoulder.

John and James won’t kiss because one of them might be shot dead tomorrow.

It’s rough, fast, they don’t talk about it ever, and it’s wonderful.  

It’s agony.  John wants to talk about it, the feeling.  It aches, pulls tight inside of his stomach,  _ this  _ does.  He says nothing, because words are dangerous things.  He shouldn’t be doing this.  What good is solace, here?  Solace is cheap.

God, but it hurts so badly sometimes, being alone.

\----

He can’t go home because home is worse than any bloody battlefield.  Home is Mum and her blank stare like all the personality has been zapped from within her.  Home is Father, his stinking body sticking to his chair.  It’s the dining room table, covered with dirty dishes, old food.  All the curtains pulled shut,  it’s always dusk there.

Harry’s a drunk, and her new, expensive flat in Birmingham is in utter ruin since she left Clara.  She’s too successful a lawyer to have rooms filled with boxes of rubbish, liquor bottles hidden in cupboards, lined up in shiny rows.  She calls John in the middle of the night, her voice thick with intoxication.  She cries, sometimes.  Blames Dad for how fucked up her life has become.  Uses the abuse threaded throughout their childhood as an excuse to keep poisoning herself this way.

“Clara didn’t understand, but you do.  You do?  Don’t you, Johnny?”

John doesn’t answer, only says, “You can’t keep doing this.  You need to get your fucking life together.”  As if he has any room to talk.  He lives alone in a tiny bedsit and dreams about guns and bombs and fire.

“I know, I know I do,” she begins crying, “I’m just so tired.”

John gathers her body off the sofa, loops his sister’s arm around his shoulders.  His wound throbs, the scarred tissue, the barely healed muscle, he winces as she forces him to carry most of her weight as they limp their way to her unmade bed.  

There’s an unidentifiable stain on the mattress, perhaps wine, vomit maybe.  Harry stares at John with her bloodshot eyes, her gaze glassy in the way a drunk’s are.  Harry was always the “pretty one,” annoyingly taller than John, fuller lips, her eyes the colour of amber.  It’s not the flat cobalt of John’s own, brown smeared around the pupil like it showed up for the job and quit half way.  

John looks around the flat once more before leaving out, spots the old dollhouse in the corner, half covered by one of Harry’s pyjama tops thrown haphazardly from her body.  They’d made it together in the attic, the only safe place in their home.  Somehow the glue, the boards, the bits of wood taken from scrap, the nails pounded unskillfully into the seams, has lasted all these years.  

He wants to destroy it.  Take it apart piece by piece.

\---

John still goes back to his bedsit that night.  He dreams about Afghanistan, stone buildings, sand storms that lasted for days and covered everything in a layer of grit.  He dreams of Sholto’s eyes, so blue against the bleach of the desert, screaming at John to stay awake as he goes into cardiac arrest.  Murray, young and frightened, and frantic to save John’s life. The uncurled fingers of dying men and women, they haunt him.  Which makes it worse, because he also misses the war.

He wishes he had died there, sometimes.  That’s how it was meant to happen.  John had been taken in by a new family, had made a new home there between the dunes.  

He’d never felt more alive.

\---

There’s a new flat, a new London, and there’s Sherlock _I left my riding crop in the mortuary_ Holmes.

They take a cab to see a dead woman, and John spends too much time trying not to notice the way Sherlock’s gloved hands move to gracefully flip John’s phone about while he recounts the basics of John’s history.  The man is obviously five shades past mad, a menace to civilised society, but John finds the cold shock of his nature refreshing.  

Not to mention, completely, utterly,  _ brilliant,  _ and John likes that a lot.  The smarter the better, in fact.  John won’t try anything though _ ,  _ no, not with this particular bloke.  Especially not after being warned off over candlelight and Italian food.  Jesus, that was awkward.

It isn’t until the next morning that John clearly sees the looming mess in front of him.  Sort of a delayed reaction, seeing as he put a bullet through a serial killer just eight hours ago for threatening his new flatmate.  

Sherlock let him kip on the sofa after dim sum and green tea since John was falling asleep at the table.  

Sherlock tumbles into the sitting room around noon, John was debating whether it would weird or not to slip out to go pack his old bedsit without telling Sherlock first.  It wouldn’t take long, he has barely anything to his name, a handful of pictures, a wardrobe of clothes, a cheap set of dishes.  His most valuable asset is his med kit from the Army.

Seems Sherlock has already taken to the walls in 221B with an apparent predilection for skulls.  Cow skulls, human skulls, paintings of skulls, might would be a disturbing choice of decor from anyone else.   _ An abnormal obsession with death,  _ he can practically hear his therapist say, but it fits.  John fits here too, somehow.

Sherlock spots John’s mug on the table and snatches it up, “Ah, good.  You made tea.”

“Actually, that’s-”  _ mine  _  John means to say, but Sherlock is already sipping it up.  “Nevermind,” John sighs and turns back to the kitchen to start the kettle.  He’d fished it from a box that already held six jars of various fish preserved in formaldehyde.  

“I need to go back to my flat,” John says, Sherlock has taken the opportunity to steal John’s spot on the sofa.  He sprawls across the sheets Mrs. Hudson had set out last night, still rumpled from John’s body.  

Sherlock bolts upright, “You already said you’d take the room upstairs.  Is this about the cabbie you shot? No, you were fine with that.  Oh, if you’re referring to the  _ fingers _ \--”

“I, uh,” John tries to conceal a smile.  It doesn’t seem like Sherlock should care at all for any sort of company, but the way his eyes flash a little guarded, a little frantic, warms John.  “Just need to pack my things, is all.”

“Oh,” Sherlock slips back in his air of general disdain.  “Oh. Fine.”

“You could come help, you know,” John offers.  “I mean, I sort of saved your life, it’s literally least you could do.”

“No, too busy,” Sherlock announces, flips idly through a magazine.

“Yeah, really looks important,” John peers at the the cover, looks like a women’s fashion editorial, and then, “What was that about fingers?”

“Nothing,” a closed lipped smile.  Fluffy curls are matted down on one side where he must’ve slept.  Lovely to look at, until John remembers he’s not supposed to look.  Not supposed to feel that unbalancing tug of want in his gut; like stumbling through the front door and panting in the stairwell after chasing a cab through London.  

It’s a feeling easily contained.

\---

There are cases, foot pursuits, mysteries.  There’s Sherlock hunched over the bathroom sink while John cleans gravel out of his skin.  There’s the curl that lies temptingly on the nape of his neck, pointing like an invitation to the long line of his spine.  It’s gets easier to look and appreciate, and not want for himself.  Perhaps, if John is being honest with himself, it’s made simpler by the fact that Sherlock doesn’t ever seem to be interested in anyone, romantically speaking.  And anyone who actively tries to proposition Sherlock is met with outright hostility.

The domesticity of tea in the morning, sorting through the papers, watching Sherlock hover over experiments in the kitchen, it’s soothing in a way.  It helps to balance the insanity The Work brings.  People would think that Sherlock is constantly intense and overwhelming, and John doesn’t feel that way at all around him.  It’s enjoyable being with Sherlock.  He’s surprisingly insightful when it comes to the vast array of subjects, funny, easy to carry on a conversation with (well, within the right parameters, and with John more so than anyone), and un-censored in a way that John usually finds refreshing.  

The “Getting to Know You,” period wasn’t the awkward thing John usually makes of it.  John always had problems putting his best foot forward in terms of congeniality.  Basically he just fucking doesn’t have the energy to give a good impression, and neither does Sherlock.  They bicker quite a lot over ridiculous matters, but John much prefers a quarrel over faking compatibility.

So, yeah, it makes John feel a bit special that someone as extraordinary as Sherlock would choose him as a sort of...friend?  Companion? Neither word seems to fit perfectly, the way they do with each other.

Unfortunately John is wise enough to know another lonely soul when he sees it.  His heart aches a little when John thinks about Sherlock like that, so he makes up for it plying Sherlock with James Bond movie marathons, or board games, things Sherlock probably never thought to experience before.

Then there’s Sherlock’s sudden, infuriating, inertia.  He won’t speak unless it’s to insult anyone within hearing distance.  The violin wails at all hours of the day and night, sometimes nothing beautiful or melodic even, he just saws away at the strings not even trying for grace.  The manic energy of the sounds seem to echo the state of Sherlock’s mind.  John wishes for the stray cats that would perch outside his window at the house he grew up in.  They’d yowl and fight, and call out for their mates, and no matter how many rocks John threw to scatter the lot, they’d always come back.  Screaming like banshees, keeping him awake.

It’s only in these times, that John really slips.  Finds himself idly thinking about what could possibly be done to calm Sherlock down, to quiet his mind.  He could press Sherlock onto sheets, still him by lacing their hands together.  Would Sherlock be shocked?  Or would he immediately try and take over the way he does most things?  Would he turn soft and pliant, in the way he never is?  What would Sherlock look like with a set of hands cupping his hips?

John doesn’t even think about undressing him, or tries not to do it often, because it makes him feel guilty.  There begins a fully realised fantasy, and John knows it for the rabbit hole it is.

John only wants to hold tight to that part of Sherlock that seems to call out for a gentle hand and warm jumpers, dense weight settled on top fine bones.

He thinks this, knowing full well that Sherlock would twist away, sooner than accept that sort of affection.  He’d much prefer to dissect John down to his core and examine the thing that makes John feel this way at all.

Doesn’t help that Sherlock does a bang up job of deterring all of John’s potential girlfriends.  Although, John is introspective enough to know that if he really cared much, he’d make sure it didn’t happen.  It’s John’s fault, he’d rather be out with Sherlock, than in bed with a girl.  

John doesn’t look at other men (well, aside from Sherlock who he can’t help but look at) since coming from Afghanistan.  It’s easier, somehow, emotional intimacy with other men, and John still finds The Intimacy terrifying.

It’s okay, really.  John hasn’t made plans, so when Sherlock expresses his distaste for all things maudlin and sentimental, John isn’t even disappointed.  Not at all.

Not even when Sherlock is helping John into his coat, and his cold fingertips brush against the skin of John’s neck.

Not even when Sherlock’s eyes go wide and triumphant and so lovely as he solves the most complex of crimes.

Not even when Sherlock looks at John like there’s something valuable hidden, and if he were to dig deep, John might be found there.

\---

A madman has John tied down to a chair, and isn’t that just his luck?  He’d left Sherlock at the flat and started off to Sarah’s.  It was too fucking cold to stay home, what with the windows blown in from a bomb and all.  How the hell was he supposed to know that the cab was going to take him right into the clutches of not-quite-just-Jim from IT.  As if John didn’t already dislike him enough, what with giving Sherlock the once-over and the number slipping under the dish.  Fuck off already, Jim.

“Honestly, I don’t see the appeal,” his voice lilts playfully.  Big brown eyes bore into John, and he can see the insanity, sparkling and volatile.  Jim rests his elbows on his knees, chin propped on his knuckles like a child.

“I was just thinking the same thing,” John blinks a bit to clear the lingering sluggishness from being knocked out.

Moriarty looks at John expectantly.  “You’re so  _ ordinary.   _ I could have a hundred just like you.  Sherlock should have just gone out for a dog.”  He pats the top of John’s head, and John is immediately jerking away.  Moriarty pokes his bottom lip out, wipes his hand off on the tops of his trousers.  “More of a cat person, myself.”

“That’s nice,” John twists against the binding at his wrists.  He holds no illusions that he’s going to make it out of this alive.  This is the wanker that blows blind old ladies to bits.  “I’ll just be on my way, then.  X-Factor is on in an hour.”

“Come on now, boyo.  Couldn’t have you wandering off before the big finale, could we?”  Jim clicks his tongue in disapproval.  

A man (or woman, John can’t tell through the gloves and mask) straps a semtex vest onto John’s chest while Jim silently watches every fleeting expression that travels through John’s body.  He’d rather Moriarty keep talking, his quietness is far more disturbing, the calculations going on in the man’s head, deductions.  Like Sherlock, but different.  So very different.

A red dot hovers over John’s heart the entire time.

\---

It’s all sort of anticlimactic afterward.  A phone call trumps James Moriarty’s apparent death wish, and John and Sherlock stumble back to their flat.

Neither speaks for some time, they hover around one another, the air is almost uncomfortable and Sherlock won’t stop  _ looking  _ at John _. _

Finally he’s fed up with it, he’s knackered, totally wrung out, and doesn’t have the patience to contemplate what the hell is going on in Sherlock’s twisted brain.  Frankly, he’s still pissed over Sherlock lying about having delivered the memory stick back into Mycroft’s hands.  Doubtful it would’ve saved them this evening, regardless, but it’s the principle of the matter.  Sherlock could have died, and the concept is unbearable, not when John has just  _ found  _ him. 

“What?” John demands loudly, “I’m tired, it’s cold, and I don’t feel like rehashing the night.  So tell me what it is you’re thinking, or I’m going to bed.”

Sherlock opens his mouth, shuts it, shuffles some papers about.  He looks away guiltily.  “I thought it was you for a moment, that you were him.”

Moriarty, he means, of course he does.  John saw Sherlock’s face when he walked in, parroting Moriarty’s words, how Sherlock’s eyes went young and sad.  Like the earth had been ripped out from under his feet.  At the time, John had only been thinking of ways to signal Sherlock to run, to save himself. 

Now, remembering the expression hurts.  Suddenly Sherlock is far too human, touchable, affected, breakable.

It goes against the rules John has set up in his mind, established to keep himself safe, to hold close his heart. 

“Why didn’t you run,” John asks quietly.

“He would’ve killed you,” the  _ obviously  _ goes without saying.  “He wanted to kill you.”

John knows this and shrugs.  He’s had people try to kill him before, none made it quite so personal of course, but the fact remains.

“You dying, that would be..  It’s unacceptable.”

“Why’s that?”  John actually wants to know, takes a step toward Sherlock and tilts his chin up defiantly.  “I’m no one.  You don’t need me.”  He doesn’t mean to recall Moriarty’s words, but they struck bitterly on John’s heart.

“I’ll be the judge of what I need.” Sherlock says simply, closing himself off behind his bedroom door.  

\---

It’s not until John’s threatening to come after Irene Adler, that he realises this has become larger than himself.  Ideas are wrenched from the safety of of his imagination, and the fact that Irene can  _ see  _ it, can say it out loud.  Well, that’s just..

It isn’t fair.  Because it isn’t like that.  

Sherlock doesn’t want  _ that _ , not in the way she or John wants.

It’s made even worse when Sherlock’s text alert goes off somewhere in the drafty openness of Battersea station, and John knows he’s heard all of this.  John’s incipient rage toward Irene, the way his words twisted with a possessiveness John is not entitled to.  

_ Jealous?  _ Irene had asked, and God, yes, he’s green with it.  Jealousy isn’t a problem John has encountered with regularity, had never attached to any lovers in such a massive way that he couldn’t imagine his life without them.  It feels  _ awful _ , petty and wretched.

Later, John nervously clenches the glass of scotch in his hand and asks, “So, how are we feeling?”  Sherlock looks out the window at the fresh fall of snow, and says nothing of what he overheard.  He only settles the violin against the pointed contour of his cheek, begins playing the composition John will forever associate with Irene Adler.

John thinks he should be relieved, but instead there’s only the yearning, the white hot desperation of it.

\---

“Are you still angry with me?”  Sherlock switches on the lamp in John’s bedroom.  John groans and rolls away from the light and squints at Sherlock.  “For locking you up in that room in Baskerville?”

“God, what time is it?”  

“Are you still angry with me?”

“Sherlock, _ what  _ are you doing in my bedroom?”  John has to breathe and clench his eyes shut, because he’s angry that he’s been woken in the middle of the night, but he’s also angry that Sherlock is crouched next to his bed and existing.  

“I shouldn’t have done that,” Sherlock admits, the words rushing out quickly, but quietly.  “In hindsight.”

“S’fine,” John mumbles into his pillow.  He shuts his eyes up tight and tries to get back to the state he was in before a madman interrupted. Better to sleep, so Sherlock won’t see how his pupils expand like wet ink at the weight of Sherlock’s clasped hands on the edge of the bed.  The scent in the room changes, begins to include the smell of Sherlock’s soap in the composition of John’s fresh laundry and gun oil.

Why is he in John’s bedroom?  Christ, no concept of boundaries at all.  Sherlock moves slowly, and John can feel sweet little huffs of breath against his cheeks.  For a moment John wonders if Sherlock is waiting for something, if, perhaps, he wants John to kiss him.  Course’ he’s probably just trying to see if John is actually gone back to sleep or not, so that he might torture John some more.

The bed creaks, the warm breaths disappear, the door clicks shut.

\----

And then Sherlock is gone.

Not just gone.  Dead.  

Dead.  Dead. Dead.

No matter how many times John repeats the word in his head, it fails to make sense.  No matter how tightly he shuts his eyes, grinds the butt of fists against the sockets, he can’t stop seeing Sherlock fall, and fall.  Sees the blood matted into curls, turning it black.

He finds himself staring at Sherlock’s chair for hours at a time.  Mrs. Hudson brings him tea, sandwiches, and thankfully says nothing when John lets it all stand untouched.

Mycroft finally has the audacity to show his face.  John considered, possibly, putting a bullet through his chest.  But he settles on a shiner, and Mycroft takes the punch with as much grace as could be expected.  He reminds him too much of Sherlock, Mycroft does, only in the eyes.

Not the colour really, Mycroft’s eyes aren’t the same crystal tone as Sherlock’s, more grey.  More like clouded water.  But it’s the fierce concentration settled right there, the thing that makes them both very special so when they look at a person or thing, it’s suddenly stripped down to its wires and cogs.  Simple motivations and truths.

Sherlock was always indiscriminately curious, but Mycroft comes across as picking the things that could waged against you as leverage.

Still, it’s close enough that when John looks at Mycroft, he sees his dead best friend, and his blood, and his lifeless stare, and it feels like one hundred heavy stones in the pit of his belly.

John doesn’t say  _ This is your fault,  _ because the look across Mycroft’s face says he already knows.  Good for him.  Holmes boys are nothing, if not clever bastards. 

He watches while John stares aimlessly at the contents of Sherlock’s bedroom.  He folds Sherlock’s night shirt, puts it away.  He can’t bring himself to pack his things, because if he did, then that might mean this is real.  It would mean that this is final, and Sherlock isn’t coming back.

John holds tight to Sherlock’s violin, willing his grip to snap the slender neck of it in half. 

“He’d play it all hours of the goddamn night.  Not even music, sometimes.  Just noise.  Just  _ nothing.   _ Why would he do that?”  John wants to throw the thing against the wall, smash it into pieces   Complete destruction of all things seems the only logical response to demonstrate his impotent fury over the briefness of Sherlock’s life.  God, the  _ waste. _

Mycroft takes a tentative step toward him, John actually sees the slight tremor go through his hand as he reaches to keep John from hurling the instrument.  “You don’t want to do that, John.”

Of course he’s right.  John can’t do it.

He sets it alongside Sherlock’s microscope, places it softly in the velvet lining of the cradle.  He leaves it there, dispossessed.  

\---

The things about finding a home, is that you don’t think that it can be taken from you.  Not like this.  John stoops in front of Sherlock’s gravestone.  It feels like exile.

\---

The familiarity of loneliness creeps back in, and at least John knows what to do with that.  It’s better than the shock of grief.  Loneliness can be medicated with alcohol, fucking, working.  It’s the Watson Way.

John does all three.  It helps, it distracts from having to admit to himself in no uncertain terms exactly why his heart feels broken.  

\---

John doesn’t mean to, but he lets himself slip backward, fall into the state of apathy that filled him after he was shot and discharged.  The grief is too much, too large, and he can’t fucking  _ hold it _ anymore.

So he doesn’t.

John lies in bed every night, feeling like stone.  He realises between all the lives and the stale blood, he’s never truly saved one soul.  He counts them all, every life that passed under his hands.

Everyone dies anyway, don’t they, in the end.  

\---

He works in a clinic now, has an entire staff underneath him.  They all basically hate him, John knows he isn’t the most pleasant person to work around right now.  Sarcastic, and grumpy, quick tempered, he’s heard them talking and doesn’t care.  He’s always been all of these things, it’s why John hasn’t kept many friends over the years.  He hates apologising, even when John knows he’s wrong. Maybe it’s why he and Sherlock we able to fit together so well, able to appreciate swinging temperaments without feeling bulldozed by each other.  

Every once in awhile he gets a patient that goes beyond the average ailments, makes John have to work a little bit harder.  Illness doesn’t have the same appeal as solving cases.  Not much justice or order when it comes to sickness of the body, and the most danger he encounters is getting sneezed, pissed, shat, or bled on.

He hires a new nurse after he’s vexed the last one enough to find a new job.  

“Hi,” she has a pleasant voice, “I’m Mary Morstan.”

\--- 

John moves in with Mary after a few short months of dating.  Harry (sober for six months, now) calls John stupid, asks, “Have you ever heard of this thing called  _ rebound?” _

“S’not like that,” John tells her. 

“What’s it like then?”  Harry stares at him, breaks her parmesan grissini in half.  _ Snap. _

“It wasn’t  _ like _ that.” John’s fingers start opening and clenching again at the tops of his thighs.

“What wasn’t?”   _ Snap. _

“Are we playing Twenty Questions now, hm?” John cocks his head at her, puts his fist on the table to keep his hand still.  “Let me see, Is it... bigger than a breadbox?”

Harry turns sarcastic too, tosses down the grissini.  “You’re acting like such an old fucking codger right now.  Fine, don’t listen to your big sister, Duchess of the Rebound.  Fucking figure it out on your own when you’re two and half little ankle-biters in, and asking yourself how you’re trapped in a marriage that doesn’t fit.”

Living with Mary is fairly easy, she puts up with his strops without giving in to them, she doesn’t ask many questions about John’s life prior to having been in it.  Which is good.  John doesn’t want to talk about it ever.  Mary is quick witted, a smart woman, and it’s easy to settle down with her.  They both complain, John is angry about most everything, and Mary is extremely critical, but John isn’t deterred.  He loves her, of course he does, he’s thankful that she’s there.  Mary hauled him by the bootstraps out from underneath Sherlock’s ghost, gave him normalcy and a future as.. Well, something different than who he was.

Real relationships aren’t a constant live wire run through your body, into your fingertips and toes.  It’s not feeling everything so much, and wanting so much until you’re hurting.

Actual relationships are safety, nights in, paying the bills, and waiting in the queue together.  It’s easy intimacy, meeting in the middle, all that.  John thinks, at least.  His therapist told him so.  He’s only had a few long term romantic relationships, so if he gets it wrong sometimes, Mary is patient with that too.

“Since when do you give me advice?” John breathes and tries to relax again. 

“I might be a colossal cock-up, doesn’t mean I don’t know stuff.”

\---

One minute John is proposing to Mary over wine, the next he has a very much alive, very surprised Sherlock Holmes, underneath him.  

John wants to fucking drag him to hell.  He wants to kiss him to death.

\---

“Can we just talk,” Sherlock says after ‘coincidentally’ showing up at the same shop as John.  

John shakes a fistfull of Romaine at Sherlock’s face.  “You’re dead, remember?  Dead men can’t talk!”

“Please John,” Sherlock even has the nerve to give a little frustrated stomp, uses his too large hands to bracket the air in front of John’s face.  “Now you’re just being unreasonable.”

And this is the exact wrong thing for Sherlock to say.  Now John must to throw the kale down, now John must shout uncontrollably in the middle of Sainsbury’s.  “Un _ reason _ able?!  Do you think?  You made me watch you die, then had me mourn you for two bloody years while you played hide and seek, and I’m the one being unreasonable?”

Sherlock is turning pink around the ears, glancing either way while shoppers gawp at the spectacle John is creating.  John isn’t normally like this, tries to keep stoic, but John defaults to screaming now when he’s around Sherlock.  Sherlock draws John’s incipient rage from within him like poison.  “Did you even think about me at all?  What it’d do to  _ me?   _ How I’d  _ feel _ ?  What kind of  _ mess _ you’d leave…”  John has to stop, breathe, look down at his feet.

“Moriarty had a gun on you,” Sherlock blurts, “You, and Mrs. Hudson, and Lestrade.  If I didn’t jump off that building you’d all be dead now!  So there, you’re welcome.”

John’s head jerks up,  “You think I should be thankful?”  He laughs, a cold, lifeless bark of noise, and he can see the second where Sherlock realises that he’s said the exact wrong thing.  John shakes his head in disbelief, leaves his bag of groceries on the ground, and walks away.

“John, I--”  Sherlock calls after him.

John yells, “ _ Fuck off!”  _ from across the store.  He gets in the first cab he sees, tells himself that it’s over.  Promises not to think about Sherlock again, to go back to Mary’s flat, devote himself completely to this actual relationship, to stop pining after ghosts.

\---

“You want to see him,” Mary quips idly, flipping to the next page in her novel.  The lamplight makes her look softer, golden around the edges, but her voice is detached.  “I can tell.”

“I wanted to see him for two years,” while he was dead, John means.  Had wished it more than anything.  “I’m done with that.”

“Were you in love with him?”  

John goes still, completely still.   “I’m sorry?”  John asks dumbly. The closest anyone has come to asking outright was Irene Adler in that damp control station.  It’s not a question he was expecting from his fiance, and so casually at that, like she’s asking about the weather or for a cup of tea.  

“I’m not dumb, John.”  

“He was my best friend.  That’s it.  I don’t want to talk about it.”  John says suspiciously, not understanding where this conversation is going or how it even began, or why it matters at all.

Mary smiles to herself, and John is struck with the sudden thought that she might be teasing him, or that she has caught him admitting to something he hasn’t said out loud.  He doesn’t understand  _ why  _ she’s doing it.

“Be careful there, sweetheart,” she closes the book and switches off the bedside lamp.  

\---

It isn’t until John is half-conscious and buried under a fire that he thinks about Sherlock again.  Not just  _ I wish Sherlock were here to get me out of this mess,  _ or even  _ Sherlock is likely the reason I’m in this mess _ , but John does think about dying in relation  _ to  _ Sherlock.  John will be snuffed out, and won’t have to deal with all these unresolved issues, but Sherlock will. John doesn’t want to admit to understanding Sherlock well enough to know that he would live with terrible regret.  He would, though. John certainly did.  Everything John wanted to say, plans John hadn’t even realised he’d been making, and the suddenness of having all that potential ripped out from within him; it settled heavy and immovable on John’s shoulders.

The smoke is beginning to choke him now, it’s getting unbearably hot.  His brain is rapidly losing oxygen, consciousness.  This is okay.  It’s not that John  _ wants  _ to die, but there’s a sort of vacancy where he ought to care more.

He isn’t sure it has happened yet, or not, if his brain is playing out its final memories, but John looks up and sees Sherlock’s face, hears him saying  _ John  _ all sincere and gentle-like.  

He tries to speak, but the blackness swallows him up.

\---

What a prick. What an utter bastard.

But John is holding on to the flashlight inside of the damn, not-imminently-exploding carriage and laughing and forgiving Sherlock anyways.  Well, forgiving him as much as John is capable of right now.

He can’t help it, it’s too hard.  John thinks maybe he misses him more now, than when he was dead.  At least when someone is dead, seeing them, speaking to them, brushing against them, isn’t an option.  Knowing that Sherlock is alive and existing in the world, not only that, but is likely only a cab ride away at all times, well, it’s a bit overwhelming.  John is constantly forcing himself to stay away.

He’s tired of it.  Why torture himself.  Besides, it’s safe now, he has Mary, he can love her without being buried under it.  He doesn’t  _ want _ Sherlock, not like that, not anymore.  

He isn’t allowed.

\---

“Mary is lovely,” James Sholto grimaces and John apologises as he puts pressure on the lower abdominal puncture wound.  They’re waiting for emergency services since a murderer, of course, decided to turn up at John’s wedding.  

“You barely spoke a word to her,” John says absently, searches through a meagre med kit for sterile gauze.

“I didn’t realise I’d be..” Sholto clears his throat, “..affected.”

John looks up at his face, and has no idea what to say to that.  There was a time where he thought he might be falling in love with James, a bond forged in war and triumph and grief and blood.  

It’s the same war that also separated them, traumatized them, and ultimately forced them to change as people.

“Mr. Holmes is extraordinary, as well.  I fear he might also be mad, but.. definitely extraordinary.”

John smiles down where his hands are holding the wound together, covering up skin John had once touched all over so very long ago. 

\---

Oh, God, he was wrong.  Really, really wrong, this time.

John doesn’t realise this until he’s dancing with Mary at their reception, smiling, and it’s all he can do, because it’s just Too Much.  Everything comes flooding back.  Every little feeling and idea and desire he had boxed up and told himself not to think  about.

John’s married.  Mary’s pregnant.  And if the former wasn’t complicated enough, the latter definitely seals the deal. 

He sees the mask peeled from Sherlock’s face for a split second, and John has to look away.  Sherlock’s eyes watching him, and only him, and John knows that face.  He’s had it stare back at him from the mirror many times, the longing, regret.  He made it a part of himself, compartmentalized it so well in order for John to love Sherlock without it driving him mad.

John can’t allow himself to think that Sherlock could feel that way, not now.

It’s not that he’s isn’t in love with Mary, and happy to be her husband, or to have a child together.  It’s only that it’s awfully confusing having been stealing glimpses of Sherlock’s knee the entire day and getting more excited for having touched it, than he is about his wedding night.  

He groped that knee once. On accident.  Sort of.  Course’ it started as an accident, brought on by too much alcohol and loss of balance.  Sherlock sitting across from him, uncharacteristically warm, and open, and  _ pliant _ , happens very rarely.  (Though, if John is being honest, he isn’t deterred from Sherlock even in his most wild of mood swings.) John managed to actually feel the knee under his fingers, the whole warm and knobbed contour of it.  It immediately had occurred to him just how  _ easy  _ it would be to slide his hand up between Sherlock’s legs, maybe grab the other knee and yank Sherlock right out of that chair and onto John.  Of course he didn’t do any of that, would never without asking first. Especially Sherlock, John can’t fathom him having much experience when it comes to lips, and zips, and allowing himself to be stroked or fu--

It also, belatedly, occurred to John that the first and foremost reason for not pinning Sherlock down and smearing his mouth across his throat, was off having her Hen’s night with Janine.  Janine who has been uncomfortably close to Sherlock this entire day, and John knows when someone is being flirted with.  He knows because he  _ is  _ a flirt, and was Sherlock actually  _ smiling _ at her?  

“You’re stepping on my toes,” Mary says offhandedly, “Might should have been paying attention to those dance lessons.”

“God, sorry,” John mumbles, looks down to his feet and adjusts and doesn’t recall feeling the curve of Sherlock’s knee against the palm of his hand.

\---

He hasn’t even been apart from Sherlock two weeks when the dreams start up.  John thought he’d stopped all that years ago, not just dreaming about Sherlock, but dreaming at all.

His sleeping mind is filled with the desert, the sun igniting the sand underneath, bullets, so many shredded humans, and John burns.

Sometimes Sherlock is inexplicably in the desert, dying too.  That’s stupid.  Sometimes it’s disjointed memories exaggerated into one flowing scene that John watches like a film.  

Sometimes it’s definitely fantasy.  Because not once has John held Sherlock still by tangling his fingers in the hair at Sherlock’s nape, and not once has he seen Sherlock’ mouth fall open on that kind of gasp, and not once has John pulled the tail of Sherlock’s shirt from his trousers and scraped his nails against his spine.

\---

John only thought finding Sherlock coming down in that doss house was a new low in their friendship, it’s nothing in comparison to the complete sickness he feels watching Sherlock kiss Janine in the doorway.  John has always had a possessive streak when it comes to Sherlock, mostly in the sense that John feels strongly that Sherlock is his to protect.  

He realises now, this is not completely the case.  It’s like watching an ex you still harbor feelings toward, move on without you.  Petty jealousy.  John hates himself for it, and gives into it anyway.

It’s odd, the part where Janine is most definitely a woman.  John thought if Sherlock were interested in sex at all, it’d be with men.  Exclusively men.   _ “Girlfriend.. Not really my area,”  _ seemed clear enough. John remembers Irene well, still despises her quite a lot, but John had comforted himself with the idea that if Sherlock had actually wanted to be with her, he’d choose her, and he didn’t.  He was spending his days and nights with John, their conversations never stopped. That had to have meant something, right?  

John watches Sherlock lean in close, tilts his chin to--

John clenches his fists and looks away.

\---

Mary Morstan Watson shoots and (briefly) kills Sherlock.  Mary Morstan is some kind of..what?  Assassin?  

No.  No, that can’t be right.  This hasn’t happened.  Shock just must make it seem real, none of this can be happening.  Sherlock can’t be be staring at John with such sad eyes and bleeding out internally while John stands here and hyperventilates, because this isn’t real.

“We’ve got to get him to hospital,” the medic shines a penlight in Sherlock’s eyes, “Pupils are blown, tachycardic, all right he’s just passed out.  We’ve got to go  _ now. _  Are you coming?”  He turns to John, expectant.  They’re out the door before John can pull himself out of the haze of quiet hysteria.

John glares at Mary.  She’s done this.  Sherlock is bleeding out, dying again for the third time since John has known him, and this is  _ her  _ doing.  No bullshit about  _ surgery _ , or  _ what he likes,  _ this is murder.  Clear cut, and John feels the truth of it aching in his bones, the wild flip of his world capsizing.

“Get out,” he says, low and dangerous.

“John, Sherlock was--”

“ _ Don’t,  _ you don’t get to say his name to me right now.”  The shock has been replaced with cold fury, the kind that stills John.  The quiet anger that possessed John years and years ago when he nearly killed his own father.  Dark and powerful and unafraid, a gaping mouth full of teeth ready to bite.  The tic in his hands has gone, leaving only the steadiness John feels when he’s got a gun held in his fist.

“We’re married--”

“No, I married Mary Morstan, not,” he shakes the jump drive with A.G.R.A. written across it in big bold letters, at her face, “--not whoever  _ this  _ is!   _ Get. Out.”  _ the words grit out from between his teeth,  he watches while Mary looks to the floor and nods.

“Fine, I understand,” she says in a tone that makes John think it’s more so the inverse.  She walks out of 221B and John is thankful to breathe again without  _ Clair de la Lune  _ cloying in his sinuses.

\---

Lestrade drives him to hospital, Sherlock’s in surgery again and John has to be there when Sherlock wakes up.   _ Has  _ to be.

He’s thankful for Lestrade, a nice bloke all around, and a very versatile friend.  Greg has a naturally calming presence, patient and kind, willing to give advice only if its asked after.  He’s a good come down from Sherlock occasionally, when life seems intense or frustrating or Too Much.  It’s good to have someone to talk to about mundane things, because sometimes it’s difficult remembering those things exist when Sherlock is in flux.

Mostly John just likes being able to sit next to him in comfortable silence, plus Greg is easy on the eyes.  There’s no pressure to talk or explain.  It gives John a sense of solidarity.  Greg would meet John in the pub sometimes, sit across from him drinking a pint. Never saying more than, “Hello there, John.”  “G’night, John.”  This time their silence is tense, and John wonders if it’s worry or something more.

“This has to stop,” Lestrade says in way that tells John not to pry into the statement.  The passing lights glint silver in Lestrade’s hair.  

\---

John realises he’s forgotten to drink water for nearly twelve hours when he goes down to the canteen to grab an Evian and a wrapped sandwich.  He decides to take a cab to Baker street for a quick wash and to gather some of Sherlock’s thing.  He’s not likely to be discharged for another week, and he’ll be asleep another four solid hours.  John had already paced the room half a dozen times, fallen asleep only to be woken up by nurses checking Sherlock’s vitals.  

He should get all this now, so that when Sherlock wakes up John won’t have to leave again.  Mrs. Hudson tells him Mary’s called, and John doesn’t have room right now to think about her, so he grabs the bag with the toothbrush and tube of Maclean’s, toiletries and pyjamas.

John nears Sherlock’s recovery room,  looks through the crack in the doorway to be sure he’s not about to accidentally knock a nurse over by pushing open the door.  There’s no nurse, but there is Mycroft Holmes.  

John has to stop, has to take a moment to watch this, because it’s likely this will be his only chance to see Mycroft Holmes with his shirt sleeves rolled up and holding Sherlock’s motionless hand.  Machinery chimes softly in the room, Mycroft has his other arm underneath his head, resting at the edge of the bed.  It’s strange, seeing it, familiar in a way.  For all of John and Harry’s quarrelling and mutually abrasive tempers, John has found himself in the exact position Mycroft is in now.

John is also painfully aware of what it’s like to exist as a completely different person, when you think no one is looking.  He’s sees the moment Mycroft becomes aware of his presence, watches his eyes slip away from concerned to cold, his spine resumes the posture of a man in control of the world around him.  

He never lets go of Sherlock’s hand.

“You don’t deserve him, you know.”  Mycroft says matter of factly.  

John doesn’t fight the statement, he’s afraid Mycroft is absolutely right.  “I do know.”

“Are you going to come in, then?”

“Sorry,” John nudges through the door, sets the bags down by the awful blue sofa. “How is he?”

Mycroft watches him, eyes narrowing.  “As well as one might expect for being shot in the heart.”

John looks away guiltily, clears his throat, “Yeah.” John remembers being shot, every conscious second of a bullet lodging itself in his shoulder, collapsing his lung, almost severing the axillary artery.  His chest clenches up when he thinks about Sherlock suffering and in pain.

“He’s a romantic, my brother,” he doesn’t say it with self-righteousness or disdain, only searches Sherlock’s face with worried eyes.  “He has a bit too much of our father’s likeness in him.  I’ll never understand how someone so dedicated to exposing the filthy underbelly of humanity, can also see it through such rose-coloured lenses.  I’m afraid it’ll be his undoing.” 

John isn’t sure what to say to this, or whether or not he even agrees.  Sherlock has made his position on romance and sentimentality quite clear from day one.  Sherlock calls John a romantic all the time, but it’s really not like that.  John isn’t one to even remember to buy flowers on anniversaries.

Something about Sherlock just pulls it out of John.

Mycroft stands and gently arranges Sherlock’s forearm over the sheets.  

“You’re leaving?  He’ll be awake soon.”

“He won’t want to see me.  Stay with him.”  Mycroft frowns and narrows his eyes again, and it’s definitely a command, not a request.  John lets it slide.

Mycroft removes his coat and brolly from where they’re hooked on the back of the door.  “I believe this relationship is turned rather toxic this way.  For the both of you.”

John’s face darkens, and of course Mycroft knows about Mary.  “The state of my marriage is not your business.”

“I wasn’t referring to your wife.”  Mycroft casts one last look back at Sherlock.

\---

Sherlock seems to avoid John when they make it back to 221B after hospital discharge.  It isn’t in any way deliberate, just in the sense where one knows in the back of their mind some type of shift has occurred.  They catch each other’s gaze through their peripherals and quickly divert again, Sherlock seems intent on going back into hospital because he only lets John do the bare minimum to help him about.  He’s constantly irritated, John assumes because Lestrade refuses to let Sherlock out on any cases until he’s fully healed.

Finally John gets tired of it.  He’s already enough drama in one of his relationships, having to walk eggshells around Sherlock is something he doesn’t have time for.  John can hear him in the loo ripping up the binding tape and cursing, he’s caught him at it before, trying to re-apply his wound dressing and doing a shite job of it.  

“Quit that!” John shouts at him, “I  _ am  _ a doctor, I’m here, can you let me do the one thing I’m actually better at than you?”

Sherlock snarls at him, the muscles in his chest and arms going rigid, “Whatever happened to knocking first?”  John ignores that, reaches to get the gauze from off the sink top.  Sherlock snatches it away, “Stop it!  Stop trying to  _ help _ me!  Stop standing there looking at me like that!”

John’s had enough of this, “ _ Jesus,  _ Sherlock!  What in God’s name is wrong with you?  You’ve been like this since we left the hospital, I’m trying to--”

“Maybe, John, for once, this isn’t about you!”

“What?” because what is that supposed to mean?  “What the hell are you talking about?  This, pretty rich coming from the perpetual center of attention?”

“Well I’m  _ not _ am I?!” Sherlock is shouting now, upset in a way John hasn’t really seen before.  “I’m not the center of attention, not here!”  He looks frantically about, hand waving to indicate the flat itself.  “Not  _ here!”   _ He gestures with long fingers in the space between them.  

“Sherlock..”  this is awful, John still doesn’t get it.  He only wants to corner Sherlock against the sink and show him exactly how much of John’s attention he has.  He hates this about himself, it’s always when Sherlock behaves so infuriating, that John wants him the most.  He takes a step toward Sherlock, only means to handle the dressing, but his fingers slip and brush Sherlock’s ribs.  Sherlock makes such a sound, almost like he’s in pain, flinches away.  John draws his hand away quickly, fingers flexing wildly by his side.

“What do you want from me?” Sherlock says helplessly.  John tries, desperately, not to notice the way Sherlock’s eyes have gone too bright, too red-rimmed and watery at the edges.  When Sherlock speaks again, it’s very soft.  “What the hell do you want from me?”  

Before John has a chance to even form a stunned syllable, Sherlock is pursing his mouth and pushing past John.  His bedroom door locks shut.

When they see each other again, no one brings up the fight in the bathroom.  John isn’t sure if he’s relieved, or ashamed.

\---

John stares at the unopened A.G.R.A file on the laptop screen.  

I can’t go back once I’ve read it, John thinks, but would he even want to?  He doesn’t think so, how could he possibly be with Mary and hold her hands after what she’s done?  

Sherlock’s life is worth more than a sad excuse, and John is  _ not  _ a piece of property.  Mary denied him a marriage by lying about her entire identity, and took his free will with it.  There’s a big difference between keeping a secret, and killing for it.

\---

“Go back to Mary, John.”  

John looks up from his newspaper.  “What?  Why?”

“Because you’re married.  You’ve a child on the way.  You’ll never forgive yourself for abandoning them.”

“I think Mary can take care of herself,” John mutters, not wanting this conversation.  “Plenty of people have children together without  _ being  _ together.” 

Sherlock abruptly turns sour, “Yes, well, I don’t  _ want  _ you here.  I can’t, not like this.  You’re driving me mad.”  Once again, he’s leaving out the door, down the stairs, shouting at Mrs. Hudson for something or another, and then he’s outside.  It’s five degrees out, and he’s gone off without his coat.

It isn’t the first time Sherlock has lashed out at John, not by a long shot, but John could usually tell he didn’t really  _ mean _ it beyond the moment.  This time it felt different, felt like a lorry hitting him square in the chest.  Sherlock isn’t back that night, or the following.  

John phones Harry, packs his clothes, and leaves.

\---

_ I’m sorry.   _

_ SH _

John gets the text in the middle of the night, a week later.  He’s so relieved, that there isn’t room left for the anger.

_ For the record, you drive me mad as well.    _ Then:   _ What r u doing?   _

John’s fingers drum on the mobile screen, waiting for a response.

_ Trying to sleep.  Not succeeding, obviously.  Did I wake you? _

_ SH _

_ No I’m up at half three texting my other madman. _

_ Really?  He any good? _

_ SH _

_ Not nearly as _ John’s mind immediately goes to  _ gorgeous,  _ and he very nearly types it out and sends it off.  Instead he leaves it at that.  His pyjama pants are getting a bit tight as it is, and John is painfully aware of Sherlock having already said he was in bed.  Easy pickings for John’s imagination.

_ Good.  Would be awkward to be jealous of a figment of your imagination. _

_ SH _

_ Since when do YOU get jealous?   _ Petty sure, competitive definitely, but Sherlock has always shown nothing but disdain toward jealousy.  John supposes he might would as well if he’d seen as many jealous criminals murder and blackmail their partners, as Sherlock.  

It takes a long time to get a reply, John is steadfastly ignoring the desire to have a wank, and just try to go back to sleep.

_ Human error. _

_ SH _

John swallows, all at once sensing two different conversations might be occurring.  He slowly taps out  _ Well, that’s allowed sometimes. _

_ Not for me. _

_ SH _

John is in the middle of figuring out how to respond to that when he gets another message from Sherlock.

_ Christmas at my parents.  Perfect time for you to reconcile with Mary. _

_ SH _

Then, bewilderingly:   _ Bring your gun, as well. _

\---

John does what is expected of him, he is a soldier after all.  Life is procedural.  

He tells himself this as he fidgets with the A.G.R.A drive in his pocket.  He still hasn’t read it, but did try to duplicate the file onto a separate thumb drive, in case.  Trust issues don’t just disappear.  Just because John has calmed down a little, doesn’t mean he’s ever going to forget what exactly Mary is capable of.  What she’s capable of, is definitely foremost on John’s mind.

He’ll go back with Mary.  For now.  Not because he thinks it’s the best, or even the healthiest of choices.  But because he’s not one hundred percent certain what Mary might  _ do,  _ otherwise.  What she might use as leverage over him.  What she might do to Sherlock. 

No, John has to do this, it’s his responsibility.  Sherlock shouldn’t always be the one who must figure out puzzles or make sacrifices.  All John knows, is that this just can’t be coincidence.  Mary can’t have happened to show up for a job at John’s clinic, of all the damned facilities in England, just happened to pursue John of all people, only do so a few months before Sherlock came back from the dead, and  _ happens  _ to be a skilled career spy-slash-assassin.  

No.  That’s not simple happenstance.  John feels it in his gut.

So he hugs Mary, he reassures her of their relationship, he tries to be soft and calming and maybe it’s enough.  Maybe it’ll be enough to keep everyone safe, which is the best John can do at the moment.

Sherlock, once again, is operating at an entire different level, and neglects to tell John.

He shoots Charles Magnussen.  Shoots him right in the head where he’s kept every bit of muck on anyone that’s ever mattered, or might matter.

John is too shocked to think.  Stunned and reeling, the gunshot still echoing in his ears, the helicopters cutting through the air, dozens of men descending upon them with guns raised high.  Sherlock is shouting something to John and he can barely hear what it is, something about love, something about Mary.

He’s cuffed and dragged away before John can even react.

\---

“Let me see him!”  John hasn’t stopped shouting at Mycroft for the past two hours.  He’s stuck at this volume.  Probably will be until he can set eyes on Sherlock.  “Why won’t you let me see him!”

Mycroft stares daggers at John, like this is somehow  _ his  _ fault.  “You know I can’t do that.  He’s in solitary confine--”

“ARE YOU FUCKING JOKING!” John realises he’s hysterical now, gives in to the feeling, slams his open hands on top of Mycroft’s desk.  “Solitary confinement?!  Your brother in  _ solitary confinement? _  He’ll drive himself mad, you know that right?   _ Christ!  _ You’re supposed to be a genius! _ ”   _ John sees Mycroft’s laptop and grabs it.  “I hope this was worth it.  Hm?  I assumed you two had something planned?  Your lovely little brother all locked up over this  _ damn  _ thing!”

“Oh no, it most certainly wasn’t  _ worth it.”   _ Mycroft turns venomous, looks John up and down, “He killed that man, who do you think for?”

A man in a dark suit with a wire run to an earpiece sticks his head through the door.  “Sir, is everything all right?”

“MATE!” John turns and starts toward him now, there must be someone in this ridiculous place that wants to actually fight John.  “I’m going to bung this laptop across your skull, right?   _ Sod. Off.” _

Mycroft nods and the man backs out of the doorway, much to John’s disappointment.  This has always been the problem between John and Mycroft Holmes, and it has been from the start.  John distinctly gets the sense that Mycroft doesn’t particularly  _ like  _ him, Mycroft finds John transparent and simple and tiresome in a way that Sherlock does not.  Which is fine, because John finds Mycroft haughty and machinated and instead of doing something extraordinary with his brilliance, Mycroft entered.. _ politics? _  Just as John has a problem with trust, Mycroft Holmes has control issues.  These things are not complementary, especially when it comes to their biggest point of contention:  How to Care for Sherlock Holmes.

“I’m sending him away,” Mycroft slumps back in his seat, “I don’t have a choice, of course, but I’m sending him away.  Away from London, away from Mary, away from this whole situation, away from  _ you,  _ and if you care about my brother at all,”  Mycroft scrubs his hands over his face, allows them to fall heavily into his lap.  “You’ll let him go.”

“But,” John shakes his head, speaks more softly, “He’d be lonely.”

“Yes, but he’ll be alive.”

\---

John waits by his phone, an entire week has passed, and Mycroft promised that he’d let them say goodbye.  He calls Mycroft constantly, has even set two separate alarms for the middle of the night.

It’s hard to think of the finality of it.  Earth is not so vast that it could keep John from finding Sherlock.  How is John expected to keep himself from Sherlock, knowing that he is out there, breathing and existing?  It’s part of the Laws of Gravitation that Mycroft has forgotten to take into account.

John’s fingers drum beside his mobile, growing more anxious with each moment.  

Mary is annoyed, it seems she has let slip a piece of her cover, the bit that seemed to care about Sherlock at all.  It’s replaced with poorly concealed toleration.  She’s angry that John won’t leave anywhere without his phone, she’s angry that John calls Mycroft a dozen times a day, she’s angry that she brought home a printed ultrasound photograph of the baby and John failed to notice it sitting there on the table.

“It’s a girl, by the way,” she holds it in front of John’s face.  “There you are, could you stop moping for one minute?”

“Good, I’m glad.”  He means it, of course.  John had never actively wanted a child, but when the thought crossed his mind he definitely would rather a daughter.  

“Are you?”  Mary asks, “Because you seem more focused on your cell phone.”

This gets John to turn his gaze toward Mary, “Cell phone?”

“That gets your attention, huh?” Mary has dropped the roundness of her English accent, it’s replaced with the standard and rhotic pronunciations of an American.  “Arba galbūt tai?”  She throws the picture down onto the table.  “Ik zou Nederlands, wie weet!  Just remember, while you’re sitting there and wondering about him, who you actually  _ chose.” _

John laughs, can’t help it, because the whole situation is so beyond his pay grade. Mary’s face reddens.  “Oh Christ, tell me you’re not  _ American.  _  That might be worse than you being an international assassin.”  

He laughs and laughs, swipes his phone from the table and leaves.

\---

It’s not until they’re standing in front of each other on the tarmac, that John sees it clearly.  

Sherlock is standing in front of him, all glassy eyes, and fumbling with words, and looking at John like John is something special.  

It didn’t have to be like this.  Not like this.  

The regret is devastating and absolute, and--  

Okay, somewhat short lived.  

It isn’t often that dead criminal masterminds send out messages from beyond the grave, but John will take it.  It’s literally the least Jim Moriarty can do after all the messes he’s left that Sherlock has had to clean.  Sure, it also means something with the potential to rip them to bits is on the horizon, but they can worry about that tomorrow.  John never has classified “potential” as an emotion in its own right, but God, he feels it now more than ever.

The relief John feels is tainted by Sherlock’s state upon the jet landing.  Damned near over-dosed on cocaine, flitting in and out of consciousness, and what little he does say makes no sense whatsoever.

“Why?” John asks no one in particular, holds Sherlock’s wrist, his pulse thrumming erratically.  Sherlock has dropped back into oblivion again.  “Why is he so determined to die?”

Mary sniffs, sardonic about it, fans herself with Sherlock’s mobile.  Mycroft just looks over his brother with sad eyes.

\---

Sherlock stumbles out of the jet, hands darting out to the sides to keep his balance, and if John weren’t so worried, he’d be shaking him by the collar of the damn greatcoat.

“Dr. Watson?” 

John turns back, ready to explain to Mycroft that he hasn’t the time to bicker just now, not with his baby brother still off his tits on a bender; but the concern and heartache aging Mycroft’s face makes John stop.

“Look after him?”  And for the first time since Mycroft entered John’s life, it’s not a demand.  It’s not an order wrapped up to make it sound like a suggestion.  “Please?”

The ‘please’ is so genuine, so far past weariness and guilt, that it hurts John to hear it.  

\----

Sherlock, much to John’s chagrin, often forces himself into states of sleep-deprivation in hope of heightening his thought processes.  

Mostly it just makes him cranky and manic.

That, accompanied with a cocaine overdose, gives way to a state of delirium.  Eventually John has to sedate him, Sherlock’s hands were shaking, he was talking a million words a minute without a break.  

Christ knows how much actual rest he’d gotten while in solitary confinement.  Neither of them are any good all alone, and it’s part of why they’re so good together.  Otherwise, John turns to stone, and Sherlock’s brain effectively self-destructs.

Sherlock is finally in bed, hair a fuzzy and crushed underneath the weight of his skull.  John closes the door after quietly checking his vitals.  Mary doesn’t immediately notice John, she is sitting in Sherlock’s chair, chin resting on her closed fist.  For a minute John sees her face without the mask, her eyes cold and calculating something John hasn’t yet fathomed.  It’s the first fully realised moment not muddied through the lense of shock, that John can clearly see that he does not know this woman in the room.

It reminds him, in a way, of his Mother.  Existing as a complete stranger when no one is looking.  He can see the precise moment Mary realises what has been given away, coldness is replaced briefly by panic, by acceptance.  She knows it’s over.

“Who are you?” John asks, his voice steady.  He moves automatically to place himself between her and Sherlock’s door.  

Mary shrugs, wrinkles her nose in a way that John remembers finding sweet.    

“Bit overkill, don’t you think?  I mean, why go through all this?  Me, the wedding,  _ Jesus _ and a baby?”  

“You’re implying that I started this with some ultimate objective in mind.”

John sighs and shifts his weight, “I’m implying you didn’t just find me coincidentally.”

Mary laughs, and it doesn’t seem derisive, which is what John expected.  She sounds  _ relieved. _  “Of course it wasn’t coincidence, nothing ever is, John.  Honestly, I can’t believe you didn’t remember me.  Strapping a bloke into semtex, little non-traditional as first dates go.  Course’ I had on a mask and the outfit didn’t really do anything for the curves but..  You’re my only mark to have survived me twice.”

“ _ Twice?” _

“Well, yeah, there was the pool.  Remember that little red dot over your heart?”  She waves her fingers, “That was me, hello!  The day Sherlock jumped, I was supposed to kill you then too.  I spent a lot of time with you in my sights.”

“Was anything real?”  And it doesn’t really matter much at this point, but maybe one day when John is very old and recalls his life, knowing some part of this wasn’t a lie would ease the memory.

“Yeah,” Mary concedes, “It started real.  I get why Sherlock is so taken.  I fell for you, too.  ”

“Aside from, you know, lying to me about who you are.”

Mary’s eyes turn stony again.  “I saw my chance to live a different life after James died, and I took it.  If you’d grown up in the business as I did, you’d understand.”

“Um,” John looks up at the ceiling, pretending to consider it, “Nope.  I don’t think so.”  Granted he doesn’t know the details of Mary’s past, but John did grow up in violence.  He has been touched by brutality and its many different faces.  John understands how these things can shift character away from the things everyone insists your heart should evolve from.  Love does burn bright, but anger can also keep you warm.  He’s held tight to this concept when love seemed too dangerous, and managed to do so without losing touch with plain human decency.

This is why he doesn’t have much patience for Mary’s excuses.  He does feel sorry for her, though, as he feels sorry for any living thing that has not yet learned that life is more than just surviving it.  

It took Sherlock to remind John of this when John came home from war and didn’t know how to live without fighting for the right to do so.

Mary ignores John’s dissent.  “I didn’t account for Magnussen.  And I don’t like loose ends, it makes for a messy life.”

“Right, I think Sherlock figured that out the hard way.”  John’s fingers itch for the weight of his gun. 

“Steady there, darling.”  Mary smirks.  “I wouldn’t kill you here, that’d be stupid.  Think of Mrs. Hudson’s carpet.”

“You can’t just disappear with the baby.  We’d find you.”

“Ah, that.  About the baby,” she shoots John an apologetic look and begins shedding her coat, the large red one John has hardly seen her out of since Christmas.  “Now, don’t be angry, but..” she pushes around her hips like a belt is there, sighs in frustration before John has to blink twenty times because Mary is slipping off the swell of her belly.

She kicks it away, “God, that thing was hot.  Only seventy quid on Amazon, would you believe.”

John fumes, clenches his fists, gestures to the silicone bump and its limp straps, “What excuse do you have for this?”

Mary bites her lip, shrugs her shoulders again.  “Psychopath?  Jealousy?  Insurance?  Leverage?  Take your pick.”

“And just what the hell were you planning on telling me in a few months when you were forty weeks pregnant with a fake baby?”

“I wasn’t planning on making it that far,” Mary almost looks guilty at that.  “Stage an accident, something.  Grief brings people together.  You’d never have left me.”

“Mary,” John can’t stand to speak to her another minute, not with Sherlock eight feet away who killed a man.  For _this._ “Please.  Get the fuck away from me right now while you have the chance.”

“We would have been happy, I think.”  Mary gathers her coat.  “Maybe not in the same way you are when you’re with him,” she nods toward Sherlock’s door.  “But we had a chance to change our lives. Be normal.”

“It would have still been a lie.”

“Yeah, but it would’ve been a good one.”  She blows him a kiss and turns toward the stairs.  “And if either of you look after me, I will absolutely kill you!”  She yells it over her shoulder.  “Goodbye John Watson.  Give my love to Sherlock, won’t you.” 

He can hear Sherlock snoring softly, oblivious to this whole spectacle.

John doesn’t move until he hears the door shut, it’s like letting in fresh air.  It’s like prying clutched hands from around your throat and being allowed to breathe.

\----

Sherlock sleeps and sleeps, John checks on him regularly.  He holds the slender column of Sherlock’s wrist to feel the throb of blood in his vein, brushes his hair from off his forehead to check for temperature.  Curls twine around the knuckles of John’s fingers, and this part isn’t new for John.  He is, literally, Sherlock’s doctor, and has acted as such on many occasions. 

The processes of Sherlock’s mind might be computer-like, but his body is definitely human.  Fragile and fallible, like the rest of them.  He catches viruses and pukes in the loo, he gets his skin cut open and needs John to sew him up.  Somewhat less traditionally, Sherlock gets bitten by a raccoon in Brecon Beacons and John gives him rabies injection on the arse.  

Sherlock is not the indestructible man he tries to present to world.  Time and nature wears on bones, just as it does rocks.

John can’t help falling in love with breakable things.  

\----

John must have fallen asleep on the sofa at some point in the night, because he’s woken by the sound of Sherlock tripping in the sitting room.  He opens his eyes to watch Sherlock bend over and snatch something from off the floor.

“Something you want to tell me?”  John asks from the sofa, his voice still rough from sleep.  He clears his throat and tries not to laugh at Sherlock who is currently going pink in the cheeks.

“I’m sorry?” Sherlock has picked up Mary’s discarded silicone belly and seems to just have figured out its purpose by holding it up to his own stomach.  He doesn’t know what to say, that much is clear, Sherlock keeps searching John’s expression for some clue on how to react.  “I mean, I am, that is..  Sorry.  It seems I’ve missed quite a lot.”

John stares, unsure what to say either, not even sure if he’s really at all sorry for himself.  It’s a bizarre sort of position to find himself in, and John is certain he should be more devastated than this.

“So…” Sherlock grimaces, holds the thing pinched between thumb and fore fingers, away from his body like a bomb.  John is thankful that Sherlock seems to understand that John isn’t wanting to have a conversation about Mary and his utterly bollocked marriage right now.  “Can I keep this?  Might come in handy for a case.”

John tries not to laugh, tries to look at Sherlock sternly because he thinks that’s what he’s supposed to do in this situation.  Instead, he gives in to the laughter, lets it bubble high and clear in his throat.  “You’re such a disaster,” John manages between breaths.

“Yes, but I believe you  _ might  _ have me beat this time.”  Sherlock smiles crookedly, tosses the pregnancy contraption overhead where it lands with an unceremonious  _ phwump  _ on the kitchen floor.

“God help me, I think I have.”

\---

It’s easy to fall back into place.  It’s easy to wake up in the morning to sound of Sherlock on the violin.  It’s easy to fall back into their wild routine of cases and clients and running breathless and adrenaline drunk back up the stairs into their home.  

It’s not easy constantly finding himself in Sherlock’s space. 

Something has broken its tenuous silence inside of John, allows the possibility of heat to bloom bright all the way into his fingertips.  After so much insanity over the past couple years, it’s a relief to have John’s scope of normality tailored down to criminals he’s  _ not  _ married to.   

And for the life inside of him, John can’t help the way his heart pitches every time Sherlock turns toward him, and takes notice.

\---

“She’s caught on, Sherlock,” John whispers at him.  They’re in Mrs. Hudson’s darkened kitchen in a desperate search for hobnobs and crisps after solving a case involving too much running, and not enough calories to support it.  The post-case tradition, founded by Sherlock, is to ransack Mrs. Hudson’s cupboards for all the snacks since she’s better at shopping for these things.

There’s only a head of lettuce and a few cans of beans in their own kitchen, might be fine for John, but not Sherlock’s sweet tooth.

“Give me a minute, I can find it,” Sherlock jumps onto the bench, knocks over the washing up liquid in the process, but finally finds Jaffa Cakes, and cheese Quavers stashed behind her bone china.  “Told you.”

“Yes you’re very clever, now come down from there before she hears us.”

“How do you think she got these up here?” Sherlock furrows his brow, quietly shuts the pantry doors.  “I don’t see a step ladder.  Did she fly?”  

“Maybe,” John laughs, watches Sherlock crouch a bit to help himself off the bench.  The attempt goes wrong, Sherlock’s heel catches the hem of the coat.  John starts to laugh because it’s a bit like watching a baby giraffe discover gravity, but then the great mess pitches forward.   Sherlock hurtles awkwardly, his shoulder into John’s chest.  The momentum takes John backward, both of them somehow keeping mindful enough to curse at each other quietly, and John’s hips land against the tabletop.  It’s pushed back a few centimeters, the legs scraping shrill against the linoleum.  

They freeze, Sherlock with his ear turned toward the door, listening for Mrs. Hudson.  John, on the other hand, has completely forgotten where they are, what they were there for, and how this happened in the first place.

His hands are splayed wide on Sherlock’s ribs, his thumbs pushed over the caging of bone.  Sherlock’s own hands are touched down onto the top of the table on either side of John’s hips. the rest of his body is between John’s legs.  He’s not looming so much as hunched over and crowded awkwardly into John’s space.

“I think we’re all right,” Sherlock whispers, eyes still shifted toward the door.

John means to disagree, but instead breathes out a shaky exhale against Sherlock’s throat, his hands slip a little farther until his little fingers can feel the sharp contour of hips.  This finally seems to get Sherlock’s recognition.  John feels the change, even with Sherlock’s head turned away, his attention shifts like a physical thing.  He slowly turns his eyes down to John, and a shiver runs from his shoulders down to where he’s being touched.

They don’t say anything, the tension pulls too tight to allow it, but John moves; pulls his hands away from Sherlock’s waist, encircles Sherlock’s wrists instead.  Sherlock moves easily, allows John to switch their places until it’s Sherlock’s thighs backed against the ledge.  Until it’s _ his  _ body being eclipsed and steadied, which seems like a good idea since Sherlock has quiet tremors that ripple against John.  It’s those little shockwaves that brings John’s brain back online.

It’s not a complete return to propriety, because instead of saying sorry, and immediately backing off, John says, “All right?” and continues leaning into Sherlock.  He can feel their breath being shared in the small distance between their lips.  A gap that John could easily close, he nudges his nose lightly against Sherlock’s, soaks up the little wisp of voice in Sherlock’s breath.  Under any other circumstances John would be happy to stay this way, drawing out the moment until the energy snaps like a whip, but right now there’s only the urgency.  Years of unmet possibilities spiralling into this very moment.  “Sherlock, all right?” John whispers.

“You can’t take it back,” Sherlock finally says, and John recognises the out for what it is.  Sherlock is giving him the opportunity to push away and act like this hasn’t happened, and that he would offer himself as an option instead of a privilege..  It’s shattering to hear.

“I wouldn’t want to,” John tells him, tightens his grip on Sherlock’s wrists before turning them loose and sliding his fingers along the flattened lines of Sherlock’s palms.  He brushes his top lip against Sherlock’s.  “Don’t you know me at all.”

“Yes,” it’s more air than sound, but it’s clear and it’s all John needs to overcome the centimetres between them.  

John has spent a long time agonising over Sherlock’s mouth, it’s exact shape and colour and the way Sherlock purses it when he’s perplexed, so he doesn’t just crush Sherlock despite being eager.  Instead, he starts simple, touches their lips together in more of a caress than anything, keeping the pressure light before settling soft and warm in the kiss.

Sherlock seemed happy to follow up until this point, gently tilting his head with John’s in search of this.  Now that he has it, this kiss, it’s seems to have thrown him into an unexpected free fall and next thing John knows, Sherlock’s hands are clutching into the fabric of his jumper, pulling him close until they’re bodies are flush together.  John tries to keep it chaste, but  _ God,  _ he’s not a fucking saint and the way Sherlock’s back arches to press into the kiss is--  was that a  _ moan?   _

John can’t get him out of the bloody greatcoat fast enough.  

The wool feels too rough against his hands when juxtaposed to the ecstasy of Sherlock’s clumsy kisses, so John pushes it from his shoulders.  He can feel the coil and release in the muscles of Sherlock’s arms while they work together to shuck the thing onto the floor.  John manages between untangling Sherlock’s elbows from sleeves, to lick at Sherlock’s bottom lip.  Very bright man he is, Sherlock follows perfectly.  The first hot swipe of their tongues is possibly the best half second of John’s entire life so he does it again and again.  Once free of the coat, Sherlock’s hands go straight into the short hair at John’s nape.   His palms are slightly humid where they bracket the line of his jaw, thumbs smooth over John’s cheek bones and stubble and settle against the whorl of his ear.

John yanks the tail of Sherlock’s shirt out of the trap of his trousers, his own fingers impatient to expose the small of Sherlock’s back.  

“Christ,” John breathes out harshly, the skin there is warm, smooth, and John hooks his finger a bit, gently scrapes his nails against Sherlock’s spine.  He continues petting him around the line of his trousers until the whole of the shirt is freed and rucked up over his hips.  He manages to tear his mouth away from Sherlock’s long enough to nudge his nose to the underside of Sherlock’s jaw and kiss his way down the prominent sternocleidomastoid muscle.  He can feel Sherlock’s pulse race against his tongue and John is very proud of that beat, somehow.   _ That’s me _ , he thinks,  _ I’ve done that. _  After all of the tragedy and fighting through circumstance and clawing their way out of their own perspective pits, to finally be  _ honest  _ with each other is revelatory.

Each kiss feels like shedding a black weight and being given life again.

Sherlock is close to panting, they’re both obviously aroused and John is trying to keep his hands up Sherlock’s shirt and petting over his ribs, stomach, hips, instead of sticking them down his trousers.

“Are you boys into my cupboard again?”

The kitchen light flickers on, horrible and bright, John is frozen in place.  One hand is inexplicably suspended a few centimetres from Sherlock’s chest, Sherlock’s fingers in John’s hair, half sitting on Mrs. Hudson’s dinner table, one leg nearly slung over John’s hip from where they were close to rutting.

John manages to turn and see Mrs. Hudson standing there, painted nail glittering red against the white switch.  Sherlock squints at her, his face is flushed, eyes dazed.  John’s brain isn’t quite at peak either, he only knows well enough to keep turned toward Sherlock, or risk making an even more vulgar spectacle of themselves.

Mrs. Hudson doesn’t say another word, just smiles maniacally, turns the lights off again, and slowly backs out of the room.

As soon as she’s gone they both double over in each other’s arms, John laughs until he has to straighten his shoulders and gasp for air.  Sherlock has his face in his hands, trying to muffle himself.

“So, that was bad,” John peels Sherlock’s hands away and kisses the dignified bow of his upper lip.  “I feel like my Mum just caught me in it.”

“I think I’ve crushed the biscuits,” Sherlock manages, kicking the exploded sleeve of Jaffa Cakes from under his shoe.  Genoise sponge is in crumbled chocolate covered fragments across the floor.  “Ugh, I’m still starving.”  He looks at the ceiling and exhales, John wants to chase the air back into his lungs.

\---

They order a pizza because they don’t feel like travelling farther than the front door, and eat it on the sofa.  John is surprised that there’s nothing exactly different, no awkwardness floating about as John imagines it often follows when one snogs their flatmate and best friend.  The energy is still crackling between them, but more subdued.  Neither seem to know how to bring it up, so they eat instead.

Sherlock breaks first.  “I’m not a sociopath.”  He holds up the crust of a pizza and frowns.

“I know that,” John sets his plate on the floor turns and touches Sherlock’s knee, tries to get his face in Sherlock’s line of sight instead of the damned pizza so that he can  _ see.   _ “I always have.”

“And I  _ do _ care,” Sherlock seems to need to clarify, to get something out from where it’s been worn like an armor.  “I do feel.  A lot.  Sometimes there’s not enough room for that, not with what I do.”  He clears his throat and looks at the floor.  “Excuse me, I’ve never done this, and I’m not sure I can do it  _ right-- _ ”

“Stop,” John says firmly, grabs the crust and tosses it down, presses at Sherlock’s arm until he looks directly at him.  “I love you.”

Sherlock’s expression doesn’t change, except the minute widening of eyes.

“So, now you know.  And as long as you’re here, I am too.”  It’s a terrible way to explain himself, John doesn’t do well with words, but at least he’s finally being honest.  “All right?”

“Ye--” Sherlock swallows and says a bewildered, “Okay?” like he wasn’t expecting the conversation to be that simple.  Sherlock could have come out as an alien, shed his skin and revealed he has actually been a pile of snakes this entire time, and John still imagines he’d love him all the same.  

“There we are, then.”  John picks up Sherlock’s hand, kisses the palm, and sits back into his spot.  

\---

John isn’t in a hurry to get Sherlock undressed and in his bed.  It’s quite nice, this adjustment phase.

Sherlock corners John next to the kettle in the morning, says, “Hi,” and kisses him until the timer goes off.

John yells at Sherlock for filling the sink basin with live prawns, because  _ Why are they there, Sherlock? Hm? Get them the hell out of there.  Get them out,  _ and  _ Oi, come back here  _ while catching the rope to Sherlock’s dressing gown and pulling him close.

Mycroft turns up after a couple weeks of silence with Moriarty case files in hand.  John doesn’t mean to, but Sherlock has his back turned and is trying to play his violin over the sound of his brother’s voice, and John is staring in consternation at shadow that wraps itself across Sherlock’s arse.

Mycroft clears his throat and John glances over.  “Stop that,” Mycroft narrows his eyes.  “I’m _ right here.”   _ But John can see Mycroft writing something down in his little book and looking quite relieved, and a bit smug. __ When he leaves, he pulls Sherlock to him, whispers something in his ear.  Sherlock tries not to smile.

\---

It doesn’t happen in a way that John thinks the everyday couple would call romantic, but it happens in the way John always thought it might.  It happens through adrenalin and triumph and the relief over making it out of peril and yet another case with their lives intact.  Their bond was forged in this, so yes, it’s sort of romantic. 

“You’re an idiot,” John pushes Sherlock up against the door, hands firm where they conform to the dip in Sherlock’s waist.  He noses Sherlock’s collar out of the way and nips down on the base of his throat, rubs his lips over the blossom of heat.  Sherlock lets his head fall back against the door, a ragged exhale escaping.  “You drive me mad,  _ God _ , you’re brilliant.”   John is vaguely aware of the contradiction, and doesn’t need to correct it because Sherlock is, in fact, all of these things.  Magnificent and maddening, ludicrous and luminous.  John isn’t complaining, especially with Sherlock’s hands running patterns across John’s body with every determined kiss.  

Sherlock reaches down and laces their fingers together.  “Let’s go inside,” he says against John’s lips.  

Sherlock leads John past the kitchen, past the sitting room where their chairs sit and face each other like familiar friends, past the damask wallpaper and the smiling yellow face, past the old sofa where John snogged Sherlock just last night.  Sherlock has his mouth set in a decisive line as he pulls John through his bedroom door.  They stand in the middle of the floor, studying each other for a minute, before Sherlock clutches the hem of John’s cotton jumper and begins tugging it up.  It crackles with static as it passes over his ears.  Once free of it and his vest, John slides his own fingertips under the cuff of Sherlock’s sleeves before undoing the buttons.  All of them.  One by one down the front of Sherlock’s chest, they go.  

They’ve seen each other is various states of undress before, but never in this context.   

“This is new for you,” John only makes the statement so Sherlock can understand that John sees the significance of the moment.  He pulls Sherlock closer by the belt loops.

“I… Yes.” Sherlock admits, John can see him struggling to put the words together. “Always seemed too close to a promise, and I was afraid.” His voice is a catching at the edges.  Sherlock catches John’s jaw with his palms and makes him look up into clear, opalescent eyes, the blotted ink of dilated pupils.  “It’s such a terrible idea, you know.  Loving people.”

“I know.” John does, of course, and wants it anyway. “Take off your pants.”

He tilts his chin upward to watch Sherlock’s expression change subtly to flustered when John begins undoing his trouser fastenings, flattens his palms and slides the garment down from off his hips.  If John accidentally has a lovely moment groping Sherlock’s arse and making him gasp, then he honestly can’t be blamed.  

Their journey to the bed is only prolonged by tripping over each other’s feet. John’s mouth to Sherlock’s ear, neck, lips. Sherlock is busy removing the rest of John’s clothes, and both too distracted to navigate properly.  Right now all that matters is the need to set skin to skin, to nip and lick and kiss, and John has to dig in with his fingers.  Has to somehow reach into and possess that which forged Sherlock, break it down and rebuild it himself.  John wants to hold him closer than he thought possible and wrench away the voice that lies to Sherlock, whispers in the back of his brilliant mind him that he’s unworthy of gentle hands.

John twists, gets his back onto the bed and pulls Sherlock on top of him, they shuffle and John laughs against Sherlock’s lips at the jumble of limbs.  John has spent a great deal of valuable time staring down all the angles of Sherlock, the whole lithe composition of it.  The casual looker only sees the fine tailored slenderness of long legs, long arms, the tapered waist.  John knows the reality, that underneath those close-fitted suits there is a solidly built man, a thick sinew of muscle binding itself over limbs.  Sherlock is heavy and substantial, both lissome and masculine. Sherlock is letting out little wisps of noise, can’t seem to stop tilting his hips in short thrusts.  His cock is damp and blood hot, pushing steadily against the inside of John’s thigh.

One of Sherlock’s hands is cradling the back of John’s head, the other is gripping a pillow, elbow locked in what John can only assume is an attempt to control the rest of his body.  He already seems too far gone to even hold his weight aloft and John has barely even touched him.

John gets his hand between them, wants to feel where they’re both hard and straining. Sherlock lifts his pelvis, and John nods in encouragement, bites down on his lower lip.  He keeps his eyes open, watchful of Sherlock as they touch, align.  Sherlock is somewhat smaller, but John relishes the fullness and weight resting against his own cock. 

“ _ Ah,”  _ Sherlock almost sounds surprised, his entire body is juddering.  He looks down to where John is cupping and stroking, his eyes shut tight and he breathes out slowly.   _ God,  _ John thinks, and says it out loud, “ _ God,”  _ and, “Sherlock,” and “Can I--”

He doesn’t finish the sentence, Sherlock is already nodding frantically, eyes still screwed closed, as John flips their positions.  He rolls until he can anchor Sherlock, smear his mouth against Sherlock’s throat, the moonlit hallow between clavicles where John’s thin lips fit perfectly.  John gets his fists in Sherlock’s curls at some point and  _ tugs,  _ and Sherlock makes such a sound.  Wild, and  _ new, _ John’s never heard it before.  It only makes him wonder what else there is he hasn’t discovered yet, it’s beautiful, that sound.  It’s a privilege.  

Sherlock is arching into John, cheeks flushed and usually pale lips have been kissed properly until they’re shaded like ripe berries.   _ “John,”  _ he’s whispering, “Please.”  It’s that lapse in control, the way Sherlock hands every shred of himself over to John even after the many times they’ve nearly lost each other; God the  _ trust.   _ It’s intoxicating, empowering.  John’s never felt it before, or for anyone else but Sherlock.  The angry red scar of Sherlock’s bullet wound glares at him defiantly.  It makes John want to stitch himself to Sherlock’s body like armor, and he would, always, if he could. 

John tells himself  _ slow  _ and honestly, truly, tries.  But it’s too much, he’s fucking human, and he’s loved Sherlock for so long and to have Sherlock writhing and naked, and  _ so  _ responsive to every touch and every whispered praise, it’s overwhelming.  Each sound is encouragement, and John groans in reciprocation, pushes himself down Sherlock’s body, pausing only to scrape his teeth against the tightened peak of a nipple.  

“ _ John,”  _ Sherlock groans when John finally gets eye level with his prize.  The tip of Sherlock’s cock is florid, a drop of pre-ejaculate beading at the slit and John feels fiercely possessive of that little pearl of fluid, wants desperately to swallow it down and make it a part of him.  He’s moves in to do so before he can even think about it.

John’s desire is answered immediately, he only has the chance to lick once at the fraenulum, gives the smallest of sucks to silky head, and then Sherlock is pulling him up and off by the hairs at the crown of John’s head.  John realises what’s happening, hears Sherlock’s spiral of breath, up, up, up, as the tension in Sherlock’s spine goes rigid.  The first burst of come against John’s lips makes him jump, not out of surprise, and definitely not dismay, but because  _ hold on  _ because  _ mine,  _ and John pulls against the hand pulling at him.  He sucks Sherlock’s prick down in one movement and bobs his head swiftly, works him through it.  Sherlock has discovered this is the better idea, because the hand stops pulling and starts pushing.  John would giggle any other time, tease him for being a brat, but Sherlock is choking out, “ _ Oh my god,”  _ over and over and over, his hips pumping up toward John with every spurt as if he’s lost all sense of modesty and control over himself.  

John, only a little unwilling, slides his mouth wetly off and swallows. He resists the urge to tease, to keep sucking lightly at the head until Sherlock is jumping underneath John’s hands in sensitivity.  John files the thought away for another time.  He kisses the slope of Sherlock’s hip, the soft crease of his thigh.

“That--” Sherlock pants, “Was fast,” eyes wide and he huffs a laugh at the ceiling.  “Sorry, I--”

“Stop there,” John interrupts, because there’s no way he’s accepting an apology for such a magnificent thing.  Plus, John is once again noticing the reality of his own arousal, straining heavy and tight between his legs.  Sherlock looks like bliss, unfairly sexy.   His hair is a humid, chaotic wreck of ochre curls fanning against the blue pillow.  He’s all miles of blushing skin, a sheen of sweat clinging to forehead. The image undoes John, makes him climb back over Sherlock’s body.  “Give me your hand,” John instructs before he succumbs to the temptation to wank himself as quickly as possibly.

“What?” Sherlock asks, still dazed.

John grabs Sherlock’s wrist and lowers it until it’s smooth and almost too cool against his cock.  John knows Sherlock.  Knows Sherlock well enough that he might literally never forgive John if he isn’t allowed to explore this experience for himself.  John doesn’t want to be seventy and trying desperately to enjoy his senility, only to have Sherlock butt in with,  _ “Do you remember that one time we had sex and you forgot to let me touch your cock and I wanted to?  Because I do.”   _ Pass. 

“C’mon,  _ yeah, _ like that,” John babbles nonsensically as Sherlock’s spidery fingers wrap tight and perfect, around his prick.  John manages between his own gasps of pleasure to look where Sherlock’s mouth is slightly open, the soft pink tip of his tongue protruding against his bottom lip.  “God, you, _ fuck fuck, _ ” John keeps on, unable to shut up once he’s started.  His hips snap, cock pushing through the tight passage Sherlock has created for him.  John’s arms are locked out on either side of Sherlock’s body.  John’s is jostling him, Sherlock’s head nearly hitting the headboard with each of John’s thrusts.  John is able to take a second, duck his head and lick into Sherlock’s mouth.  It’s a little messy, uncoordinated, and completely perfect.  John absently picks up his left hand, runs the flat of his thumb over the sharp bit of Sherlock’s front teeth.  This seems to make Sherlock’s eyes light up with an idea, and he twists to recapture John’s finger again, sucks, bites down on the fleshy pad until there’s only a hint of pain.  

It’s makes John curse and moan, makes a more urgent rhythm set into the base of his spine as he ruts uncontrollably.  He calls out Sherlock’s name, meaningless fricatives, voice nothing but rough gravel and panted air.  Sherlock gasps when John tips over the edge, and John has to turn his head low to watch it happen, watch as the concave of Sherlock’s belly is striped with his come.  It’s brilliant.  Honestly, Sherlock’s never looked more incredible than he does now, debauched with a bruise the shape of John’s mouth high on his throat.

“God, what a mess I’ve made of you,” John manages between breaths.  “What,” he reaches down, “A--” he smears his index finger down the middle of the milky globules, “Mess.”  John pushes his fingers into the coarseness of Sherlock’s pubic hair, onto his softened cock and feels it twitch.

“Something tells me you’re not quite broken up about it,” Sherlock’s eyelashes flutter.

“Mh,” John shrugs, reluctantly reaches across Sherlock and nabs his vest from where it ended up draped on the bedside table.  He takes his time wiping them both clean, and tosses the thing away.  “Here, budge a bit.”

They move lazily, adjusting their limbs until they find something comfortable.  Well, Sherlock finds something comfortable, John finds himself on his back with the entirety of Sherlock more or less on sprawled across the smaller line of his body.  Sherlock tucks his nose against John’s pulse, his other hand is cupped protectively over the deadened skin branded across John’s shoulder.  

“Sorry it took me so long to get here,” John strokes Sherlock’s hair, over the sharp wings of his scapula.  

“S’fine, doesn’t matter,” Sherlock’s voice is muffled, sleepy.

“It does matter.”  John hopes one day he’ll come to terms with lost time  “We were almost too late.”

Sherlock sighs, “Well you must realise.  No?”  John shakes his head and Sherlock tips his face toward John and gazes at him in such a way.  “It was too late for me the moment you turned up in that lab.”  He smiles, closed-mouthed, snuffles back down against John’s throat. 

“Oh,” John says, and he doesn’t know what else to say to that.  Sherlock admits this so simply. John can barely remember why the idea of this, holding close and being allowed to love Sherlock, used to seem so large and terrifying, like being squeezed until choking.

Maybe then, he wasn’t ready.  Maybe he had forgotten what it was like to reach out and touch, keep safe the things worth holding on to, without crushing it all to death.

“I love you too,” John says, and that will have to be enough.

\---

**Author's Note:**

> You can also bring the party over to tumblr. I'm really lousy at linking at the moment, because I just did a trash job at proof reading the whole thing you just read and can't remember how to html link off the top of my head, yikes.. But I am also AuthorGod over there, as well as here. I hope everyone knows I am using that pseud ironically.


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